Handloader Magazines

[abunaitoo]

Anyone else collect Handloader Magazines?????
Just something else to take up space in the house.
Still holes in my collection.
Took a box to the Gunshow this weekend, and only one person even looked at it.
Kind of sad.

[Bazoo]

I collect them. I have a small start. I mostly collect the ones that have articles that interest me though. 44 special, 30-30 at the moment. If I attended a gun show and found a box of handloaders, I’d pick through them right after I asked how much. If they were $5 each I’d buy 1-2. If they were $10, I’d have to be mighty interested. If they were $1-$2 each I’d whoop out a twenty and have at it.

I also collect gun digests and the like. I’m thankful that a member here a few years ago passed on a collection of gun digests and guns and ammo annuals to me for the cost of shipping. I forget who he was, but I am slowly working through that stack and enjoying all the old info.

[Bazoo]

Now that I think on it, I collect hunting books and such too and you sent me some books for shipping once. Backpacking and trophies and whitetail hunting. They are upfront on my shelf for small books. Some of them I’ve looked at and some are in line to read.

[skeettx]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive :)

[15meter]

I annoy my wife with my stacks of old Handloader. I get myself into old reloading projects that the newer conventional reloading manuals completely ignore.

280 Ross anyone?

Dug through the stack and came up with several articles that helped.

And even with my reloading manual collection taking up 5+ feet of bench space, The boxes of Handloader still gets mined for information even on more conventional cartridges.

[alamogunr]

I've got all of the Handloader magazines except for the most recent. Mine hasn't arrived yet even though several have posted about articles in the issue.

When I ordered John Taffin's latest book, Wolfe included several fliers with back issues. I kept the Handloader flier and use it as a guide to back issue content. Not complete but better than going thru each issue looking for something.

[Soundguy]

Anyone else collect Handloader Magazines?????
Just something else to take up space in the house.
Still holes in my collection.
Took a box to the Gunshow this weekend, and only one person even looked at it.
Kind of sad.

I got 2 bookshelfs full of those and the handloaders digersts...

[pertnear]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive :)

Call me compulsive too, as I save all Handloader's. So I guess Rifle Magazines are collectible also? Do they get the same demand & pricing as back issues of Handloader?

[dannyd]

I have them all on DVD's got the set for Christmas one year, so just order new DVD at the end of each year after that. Have them from 1966 to 2020.

[Bent Ramrod]

Handloader and Rifle used to be “Journals of Record;” you could go back to decade-old articles the way you go to reference books for data. And like the reference books, the data was still timely and useful.

Then they got new people in who wanted more pizazz for newsstand sales. Suddenly there were animal pictures and large-cap enticement lines on the order of “SHOOT-OUT!! Which is Better—The 9mm Or The .38 Special??” on the covers. The content went increasingly toward infomercials, gushy product reviews and puff pieces. They have a stable of regular writers who grind out 1500 words on this or that, and the amateurs/semi-pros and their experimental work that used to be most of the magazines’ content were (as far as I can see) told their submissions were no longer welcome.

I dropped my subscription after a few months of this, but used to look through the individual issues on the stand at the grocery store or Wal-Mart or wherever for the in-depth article of interest to me that might come up every couple months or so. If they looked good, I’d spring for the newsstand price, maybe a couple times a year. I do like Venturino, Pearce, and a few others, but a lot of the content just doesn’t interest me. I stick with old powders, old calibers and old designs, so I don’t get much out of the new offerings.

I can’t find either magazine any more on the racks where I generally go to shop. I get the impression that maybe dropping their special-interest audience and competing with the rest of the hunting/shooting/self defense pop lit might not have been a good idea after all.

I still have a shelf full of the old issues, and refer to them frequently. But there are only a dozen or so of the new versions in there. The stuff that used to be in the old magazines is now on Internet forums like this one.

[dannyd]

Just ordered 2021 DVD, so I will be almost up to date. The Handloader has changed over the decades but so have I.

[dannyd]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive :)

Not at all; I have about 10 years of rifle on dvd's someday I will order the rest.

[Bazoo]

I don’t see that handloader is just playing to the crowd. I see plenty of articles that the common folk have no interest in.

[cwlongshot]

I save them as well. Along with a couple
Other magazines I enjoy.

[alamogunr]

I got 2 bookshelfs full of those and the handloaders digersts...

I resemble this post.

[sailcaptain]

Like others here have said. I have mostly the ones that interest me or have the “how to” articles for the calibers I reload.
As it would happen, we went through the 100 year flood, “ that never happens” and suffered through an 18 inch flooded basement. Of course the shelf of my Handloaders was the bottom shelf and the .455 Webley Cover story issue was one of the casualties.
So you have a great collection, my suggestion, put it high on the upper shelf.
No one knows where we are in the 100 year event cycle at any given moment.

[quack1]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive :)

I'm excessive compulsive too.
When they started publication, the local gun shop carried both magazines and I bought them there for the first couple years, then subscribed to both, and have kept up the subsections since then. They have been "dumbed down" over the years, but are still better than other magazines.
I use them for reference pretty often. In fact, a buddy was just here last week, going through them for data for a new gun chambered for a cartridge he never loaded before. I wish there was a searchable index online, would be a great help. I have copied the yearly indexes, which helps when searching for something, but after over 50 years of publication for each magazine, it still takes a lot of time to go through all the index copies.

[shtur]

I have from Number 1 to approx Number 220 with some gaps. In the 1990's back issues would sell for $5.00 at guns shows. I tried selling them at a local gun show and didn't get any buyers interested in them for $5.00 an issue. Either the market is flooded with them, or people prefer the DVD versions.

[cwlongshot]

I collect them as well. Not the same magazine it used ta be... I still subscribe. Many holes in my collection. I havent done a gun show in decades. Around here they have been neutered to military patches cots & canteens.

CW

[lotech]

Handloader and Rifle used to be “Journals of Record;” you could go back to decade-old articles the way you go to reference books for data. And like the reference books, the data was still timely and useful.

Then they got new people in who wanted more pizazz for newsstand sales. Suddenly there were animal pictures and large-cap enticement lines on the order of “SHOOT-OUT!! Which is Better—The 9mm Or The .38 Special??” on the covers. The content went increasingly toward infomercials, gushy product reviews and puff pieces. They have a stable of regular writers who grind out 1500 words on this or that, and the amateurs/semi-pros and their experimental work that used to be most of the magazines’ content were (as far as I can see) told their submissions were no longer welcome.

I dropped my subscription after a few months of this, but used to look through the individual issues on the stand at the grocery store or Wal-Mart or wherever for the in-depth article of interest to me that might come up every couple months or so. If they looked good, I’d spring for the newsstand price, maybe a couple times a year. I do like Venturino, Pearce, and a few others, but a lot of the content just doesn’t interest me. I stick with old powders, old calibers and old designs, so I don’t get much out of the new offerings.

I can’t find either magazine any more on the racks where I generally go to shop. I get the impression that maybe dropping their special-interest audience and competing with the rest of the hunting/shooting/self defense pop lit might not have been a good idea after all.

I still have a shelf full of the old issues, and refer to them frequently. But there are only a dozen or so of the new versions in there. The stuff that used to be in the old magazines is now on Internet forums like this one.

Those are perhaps the most insightful of the comments here on this subject.

I'm glad HANDLOADER and RIFLE are still published even if they aren't what they used to be. Like other paper publications, they struggle to survive. The best editors Wolfe Pub. had are long gone, but they still have writers like Pearce, Barsness, and one or two others that remain the best in the business.

It appears many shooters / handloaders today have little or no interest in technical or accuracy-oriented articles perhaps because they lack the handloading background to understand such work. They much prefer shallow and quickly accessed YouTube material, often presented by less-than-knowledgable people who couldn't get an article published in a paper magazine if their very life depended on such. The "watchers" (as opposed to readers) are content with superficial material. The gun magazine publishing folks are aware of this and have lowered standards to the point of accomodating some of these folks but not all. And then you still have that faction that refuses to pay for any printed material, thinking everything can be had for free on the Internet. They'll never know that's not true nor do they know they miss out on a lot, but that's how they unknowingly perpetuate a second-rate knowledge of handloading.

[georgerkahn]

Anyone else collect Handloader Magazines?????
Just something else to take up space in the house.
Still holes in my collection.
Took a box to the Gunshow this weekend, and only one person even looked at it.
Kind of sad.

Interesting I see your post! I have been getting more and more disappointed with Handloader, but in today's post came the most current issue -- and I'm in proverbial "heaven". Quite a good articles on .38-40WCF, the ubiquitous .38 S&W Special, the .30WCF, the 'Legend, plus even more articles of interest to me.
In several past issues there was maybe one, possibly two articles I'd even bother reading. BUT THIS ONE? Just the opposite.
geo

[alamogunr]

The latest issue of Handloader came today. The first thing I noticed was that each feature article was printed on continuous pages without the "turn to xyz" for the rest of the article. I've always wondered why all magazines forced you to go looking for the rest if an article at the back of the magazine. Kudo's to Wolfe. Assume they are doing this for all their magazines.

Unlike many, I find something interesting/valuable to me in each issue of Handloader.

[15meter]

The latest issue of Handloader came today. The first thing I noticed was that each feature article was printed on continuous pages without the "turn to xyz" for the rest of the article. I've always wondered why all magazines forced you to go looking for the rest if an article at the back of the magazine. Kudo's to Wolfe. Assume they are doing this for all their magazines.

Unlike many, I find something interesting/valuable to me in each issue of Handloader.

It's all about the advertising, more pages they can force you to flip to more ads they can present.

[rockrat]

Saw my first "Handloader" while I was in college. After a few months of buying it at the gun shop/car repair place, I got a subscription. That was over 40 years ago. Think I am missing a couple of issues from a few years ago (stupid covid--misplaced my renewal), but I have them all in boxes scattered everywhere(my Father was a master of order, I tend towards chaos)

[SoonerEd]

I have some Handloader mags. The ones I mainly collect are Precision Shooting.

[CBH]

The only magazine I hoard. Every issue since about 1986 or thereabouts. I read them over and over and o.....

[Kentucky Rifleman]

I don't collect physical magazines, but I'd love to be able to pull together a PDF collection of them. I've only been able to find a handful available as PDFs online, and I am NOT going to cough up 500 bucks or whatever it is for their DVD collection, which - if I'm reading the description correctly - isn't PDFs of the magazines anyway, but some kind of proprietary software that lists all of the old data. If anyone has back issues that they are willing to sell cheaply or loan me for a few weeks, I'd foot postage and we could work out a trade of some kind.

[cwlongshot]

The only magazine I hoard. Every issue since about 1986 or thereabouts. I read them over and over and o.....
Good resource for information. I keep mine as well.

[midnight]

I have almost all Rifle & Handloader magazines in sheet protectors. They are kept in three or four inch three ring binders & all in order. They are a gold mine of information.

Bob

[zymguy]

The community College I attend has several gun rags going back decades , in some cases to the first issue.

Sent from my SM-S127DL using Tapatalk

[Alferd Packer]

I put out the 500 bucks to hand-made and rifle and got the discs.
They are the full magazine from cover to cover on the disc.
You can print out any article or with an ink jet printer you can reproduce the whole mag from c0ver to cover in color.
Ink is not cheap though and it will cost quite a bit to do that, but issue no 1 of handloader would be fun to have.

[Alferd Packer]

Issue no 1 would probably be worth some money to sell.

[curiousgeorge]

Handloader is the only one I collect. And the info from 50 years ago can be valuable today. Some of the older cartridges and guns that were regularly written about in the 70's are never mentioned today. I just recently bought two different offerings from Swappin and Sellin. Have read from cover to cover. Was worth every penny I paid.

[ascast]

I think Handloader was a great mag. I never subscribed. I would love to get a whole collection. Problem is peeps want $5 per issue. I am not paying that. Maybe $1 per issue. I have The Rifleman from maybe 1940 to current. Far more political than gun rag from the '70 on. The older issue have a lot of good stuff in them.
I may get a scrip to Handloader. Precision Shooting was another good one.

[muskeg13]

Like others here have said. I have mostly the ones that interest me or have the “how to” articles for the calibers I reload.
As it would happen, we went through the 100 year flood, “ that never happens” and suffered through an 18 inch flooded basement. Of course the shelf of my Handloaders was the bottom shelf and the .455 Webley Cover story issue was one of the casualties.
So you have a great collection, my suggestion, put it high on the upper shelf.
No one knows where we are in the 100 year event cycle at any given moment.

Similar here. Most of my 1990-present collection was in the shed during our first 100-year flood. Luckily they were on a shelf high enough to survive, but I put them in plastic boxes with tightly fitted covers and put them on a higher shelf. Good thing, 6 years later we had another 100-year flood that was even worse. No problems with the Handloaders then, or in 2 more major floods.

During the boring winter months, I shovel a path to the shed to retrieve a box or two of the old issues and re-read them. Most Handloader articles are so well written that they're interesting when reading a second or third time, and as others point out, I often do deep dives, rooting through old issues to find articles on something that has caught my fancy for the moment.

When Wolfe ran a sale last year on old print issues, I scarfed up 31 pre-1990 and was told that I wasn't the only one. While my wife complains about the space the old mags take up, I point out that I'm only keeping Handloader, BP Cartridge and Rifle these days, and not the other four subscriptions.

[lx2008]

i`ve been subscribing since 1994